President Donald Trump has made it clear from the start that he wants to run the largest deportation operation in the country’s history, pushing for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain at least 3,000 migrants a day with a goal of a million deportations a year. What’s become more obvious since he federalized the National Guard in Los Angeles during the summer, against the wishes of California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, is that the plan for mass deportations is also meant to provoke a response to justify harsh crackdowns on Trump’s political foes — and now his people are admitting as much.
Texas National Guard troops entered Chicago on Tuesday, over the objections of Illinois’ Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker. Meanwhile, Trump signaled he may soon invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows a president to dispatch active-duty military to states that are defying federal law. The threat is a show of force meant to shore up a flailing president, whose heavy-handed tactics in rounding up undocumented immigrants — and in some cases, legal residents and even U.S. citizens — appear to have contributed to his slipping poll numbers on immigration.
In the face of this disapproval, Trump’s foot soldiers have fanned out across the country to sell an increasingly wary nation on effectively federalizing policing in American cities.
Although the president may not care about public opinion, more than 60% of Americans oppose the recent troop deployments, according to a new CNN poll. In the face of this disapproval, Trump’s foot soldiers have fanned out across the country to sell an increasingly wary nation on effectively federalizing policing in American cities.
“Chicago will be saved,” FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X on Tuesday, announcing his visit to the Windy City. Even though Chicago just ended a summer with the lowest homicide rate in 60 years, the administration is arguing that local law enforcement officials are failing to protect federal immigration agents and therefore need military help. Criticism is escalating in the wake of a series of over-the-top ICE operations in the last week, including allegedly pepper spraying Chicago police and detaining children.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who said in 2024 there would be “war on our hands” if former President Joe Biden federalized national guard troops, kicked off her swing in Chicago with an awkward pit stop on Friday at a municipal building for a bathroom break. But the doors were slammed shut in her face. “Absolutely shameful,” Noem complained afterward on X and Fox News. Since the entire tour is a content operation, the embarrassing moment was caught on camera.
Noem was accompanied by right-wing YouTube star Benny Johnson, one of the biggest provocateurs promoting the conservative media doom loop, who was first made infamous after being fired from BuzzFeed News for plagiarism. He was later revealed as one of several conservative influencers allegedly co-opted by Tenet Media, which federal authorities say had ties to Russian state media efforts to influence U.S. audiences. Now, Johnson is documenting the supposed collapsing civic order in cities on behalf of the White House. His presence, though, may be doing more to undermine any message of power and control Noem hopes to convey.
On the season opener of “Saturday Night Live,” for instance, guest host Bad Bunny used his monologue to mock Noem’s threat that ICE will be all over the Super Bowl. The day before, Johnson asked Noem about the NFL’s selection of the Puerto Rican pop star to perform at next year’s halftime show. Noem offered a hysterical response. “Well, they suck and we’ll win, and God will bless us and we’ll stand and be proud of ourselves at the end of the day, and they won’t be able to sleep at night because they don’t know what they believe. And they’re so weak, we’ll fix it.”
Undeterred, on Tuesday Johnson followed Noem to Portland, where the pair walked into a spectacular self-own. “Noem stares down army of Antifa and a guy in a chicken suit from the rooftop of the ICE facility here in Portland,” Johnson posted online along with a video of the secretary surrounded by armed men surveying a scattering of folks looking up from the street. “Noem isn’t chicken,” Johnson added, along with a baby chick emoji. He then reported that Noem plans to boycott country singer Zach Bryan for releasing a song critical of ICE’s operations. “Zach, I didn’t listen to your music. I’m happy about that today. Today, that makes me very happy that I never once gave you a single penny to enrich your lifestyle. I am going to go out and probably download some Jason Aldean, John Rich, Kid Rock, and Jon Pardi songs,” Noem said. The DHS official social media account then trolled Bryan with a video dehumanizing migrants set to his song “Revival.”
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Taking a more serious and somber tone, Trump’s once‑behind‑the‑scenes lead architect of hardline immigration policies, Stephen Miller, also recently ramped up his media appearances to legitimize the administration’s controversial operations. Vowing that Trump’s immigration laws will be enforced “in all fifty states,” Miller spent much of last weekend arguing that the president has an “absolute moral and constitutional duty” to conduct mass deportations, and that campaigns by anti-ICE protesters in Portland and Chicago should be considered “domestic terrorism.” But on Monday, Miller had his own major media misstep.
Speaking with CNN’s Boris Sanchez, Miller made clear there is a more dangerously authoritarian motivation to centralize power. When asked about his claim that rulings preventing the deployment of state National Guard troops to relatively small protests near the Portland ICE facility amounted to a “legal insurrection,” Miller said Trump had “plenary authority,” meaning absolute power without limitations or restrictions on the issue, before suddenly freezing in front of the camera.
“Well, the administration filed an appeal this morning with the Ninth Circuit,” Miller told Sanchez. “I would note the administration won an identical case in the Ninth Circuit just a few months ago with respect to the federalizing of the California National Guard under Title 10 of the US Code… the president has plenary authority…”
It was a revealing misspeak. Ultimately, Miller said what he wanted to say, spreading the helpful narrative that checks and balances are dead in the second Trump administration, and then just pretended not to hear, leaving the interviewer unable to ask any follow-up questions.
Ironically, Miller’s media swing is a flop on Trump-friendly Fox News. The network has comically fixated on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent diss of Miller, to the amusement of the New York Democrat. “I cannot believe they aired this and made him listen to it live. I am crying,” she wrote, while sharing a snippet of Miller’s Monday interview with Laura Ingraham. During the segment, the host aired an Instagram video of Ocasio-Cortez tearing into Miller during her Sunday stream. “He looks like he is angry about the fact that he’s 4’10,” she said. “And he looks like he is so mad that he is 4′ 10″, that he’s taken that anger out on at any other population possible. Like, laugh at them! Laugh at them!”
Their only jab back at her was that she’s wearing comfortable clothing in her own home. “Well, we knew that her brain didn’t work,” Miller responded. “Now we know her eyes don’t work. So, she’s a mess, right? What a trainwreck.” The next day, his wife, Katie, was pressed about Ocasio-Cortez’s mockery of her husband by Fox News host Will Cain. “He’s 5’10,’” she clarified.
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